Author Topic: Lightgun News- Some News from HAPP (Read 42939 times)

wbassett · « **Reply #40 on:** August 27, 2008, 10:32:29 pm »

Thanks for the answers.

Some have asked in another thread if the sonic sensors will work behind plexi or glass?

One of my complaints about the TopGun sensor bars is that they look bad hanging on the from of a cab. Granted I realize they can be placed behind the glass, but this isn't my permanany gun setup so I'm not going to the trouble of hiding the sensor bars when I plan on replacing the gun system anyway.

Also what is the range? That is another common complaint about the IR based guns. How far back do you have to stand? How is the accuracy as compared to other acrade guns and does it flash the screen like they do? (I'd think a screen flash wouldn't be necessary with a sonic sensor system)

davidrfoley · « **Reply #41 on:** August 28, 2008, 12:46:12 am »

I'll start a new thread about the Sonic Gun System since this thread is really about the lightgun (optical gun system)

Bondo · « **Reply #42 on:** October 15, 2008, 02:44:12 pm »

I was wondering if any one heard back about the Opti-Gun Adaptor.

davidrfoley · « **Reply #43 on:** October 15, 2008, 02:52:00 pm »

Happ had working boards, unfortunately they never tested them with Happ Guns, just with Area 51 guns. We are taking a look at adding Area 51 gun support to the firmware now.

Bondo · « **Reply #44 on:** October 15, 2008, 03:03:28 pm »

Hey Dave,

Thanks for the quick reply.
Has there been anymore talk about the stripped down version of this board. The only things I'm really looking for is it to work with a standard Happ gun and thier recoil gun.

davidrfoley · « **Reply #45 on:** October 15, 2008, 03:21:53 pm »

If we see some interest in the product, we may build a "lite" version, but it's expensive to respin the board so we have to see if there is enough interest to justify the expense.

brandon · « **Reply #46 on:** November 06, 2008, 04:01:38 am »

Quote from: davidrfoley on October 15, 2008, 02:52:00 pm

Happ had working boards, unfortunately they never tested them with Happ Guns, just with Area 51 guns. We are taking a look at adding Area 51 gun support to the firmware now.

what is the different between the Area 51 gun and the Happ guns? I was under the impression that light guns were little more than a photocell and a switch.. In which case you could hack a NES zapper to work with one of these interface boards

TeutonicDarkness · « **Reply #47 on:** November 16, 2008, 05:10:17 pm »

Quote from: davidrfoley on August 27, 2008, 07:22:48 pm

http://www.nanotechent.com/opti-gun.php

OK just got in on this discussion.
So all I need is this device and 2 actual Haap Arcade guns?
I'm confused with everything still being discussed....
Is the product finished and ready to go?

I mean there is a buy now button on that site

so I kinda was thinking its fully done and selling now?

OK ... Stupid question alert!!!

How exactly does this interface with the PC does
it plug into a pci slot ;or does this device plug in from a PC
usb then Arcade guns interface from there?

Just trying to be clear.

Thanks,

jeffremiller · « **Reply #48 on:** December 12, 2008, 05:32:36 pm »

Any updates on this?

Anyone actually tested this board?

JayB · « **Reply #49 on:** December 12, 2008, 06:04:01 pm »

I'd be interested to know also as I have two Happ arcade guns sitting unused at the moment.

wbassett · « **Reply #50 on:** December 12, 2008, 08:50:35 pm »

Sorry, I don't have any new updates.

I'll contact Les, but if I have to do a purchase instead of getting a loaner for a review it will have to wait until after Christmas.

I am also probably going to go with an LCD display, but haven't totally decided yet so Dave's Sonic gun system may be more practical for me. I was getting interested in the EMS RF TopGun and hoped that they finally had full working products ready but it sounds like these also have some bugs and issues. We'll have to wait and see some more reviews I guess.

dkubarek · « **Reply #51 on:** December 13, 2008, 11:26:46 pm »

Is the Sonic Gun ready yet? Any work on its arrival?

peterpepper · « **Reply #52 on:** December 30, 2008, 06:03:30 am »

Quote from: wbassett on December 12, 2008, 08:50:35 pm

Sorry, I don't have any new updates.

I'll contact Les, but if I have to do a purchase instead of getting a loaner for a review it will have to wait until after Christmas.

Any news from Les? Christmas is gone too

...we are tuned from Italy too, since June

http://www.mameitalia.net/index.php?showtopic=8942

P.S. I also have a couple of questions: will the OptiGun work with the original Namco guns too? and, much more important: on the NanoTech datasheet only 5 resolutions are listed to be working... does this mean that we'll have to force light gun games to work stretched at one of those resolutions? or will they work at their native resolutions? (i.e. operation wolf works @ 320x240, point blank is 288x224, jurassic park is 416x224, and so on...)

sWampy · « **Reply #53 on:** December 30, 2008, 09:49:22 am »

Aren't wii-mote's put into a gun shell going to be the ultimate solution once better drivers are written. They work with any display technology, any display orientation, resolution, etc. By controlling the distance between the led's you can control how close or far back you stand. I played hod on the wii with 2 perfect shot holders on a 100"+ projector, and it was awesome, 2 players shots dead on.

Games001 · « **Reply #54 on:** December 30, 2008, 10:15:09 am »

The only problem thus far is the CRAP drivers for the Wiimotes these days. Once they clean them up, I can see no reason not to include the Wiimote as a standard for many home machines.

peterpepper · « **Reply #55 on:** December 30, 2008, 05:46:13 pm »

We already have working solutions around:
* for crt: GunCon2 + Smog's GunCon2PC driver or Acorn's WinGun driver)
* for lcd: EMS TopGun II

The topic here is about using real arcade guns... isn't it?

Siris · « **Reply #56 on:** December 30, 2008, 10:16:16 pm »

Quote from: davidrfoley on October 15, 2008, 02:52:00 pm

Happ had working boards, unfortunately they never tested them with Happ Guns, just with Area 51 guns. We are taking a look at adding Area 51 gun support to the firmware now.

Not sure I understand that, from what I can tell from the Happ site:

http://www.happcontrols.com/amusement/optical/96067000.htm

The guns interchange with a simple dongle to change connectors. So why would that need a firmware revision?

I haven't been around in years but just picked up an Area 51 Site 4 cab got it working beautiful with soft15khz, I was just getting my Act labs gun working on my VGA monitor to try on the 25".

So happened upon this thread, That adapter would be awesome for me, would love to see these Site 4 guns put to good use.

BTW: is the shoot off screen to reload in Area 51 working?

sWampy · « **Reply #57 on:** December 30, 2008, 11:52:07 pm »

Quote from: peterpepper on December 30, 2008, 05:46:13 pm

We already have working solutions around:
* for crt: GunCon2 + Smog's GunCon2PC driver or Acorn's WinGun driver)
* for lcd: EMS TopGun II

The topic here is about using real arcade guns... isn't it?

Both those work like crap, I've wasted a ton of time and money trying to get both to work worth a crap.

As far real arcade guns, they are all very limited, work with only one type of monitor, one resolution, very limited ranges they work in, etc.

When the driver problems get ironed out with wii remotes, they can be retrofitted in to just about any real arcade gun case you can think of and actually work with modern monitors/computers.

Siris · « **Reply #58 on:** December 31, 2008, 12:34:34 am »

Just found out that soft15khz and the act labs gun is a no go. :/
I thought I read it would work with separate h/v sync???

davidrfoley · « **Reply #59 on:** December 31, 2008, 07:32:33 am »

Arcade Guns do not have any limitation on resolution or support a single monitor type. Real Arcade guns are only limited to CRT technology. They won't work with LCD's or Plasma's. We support several resolutions and monitors with the OptiGun board and Happ or Betson light guns. The range we can work with is from 320x200 15KHz to 1024x768 31KHz. Most Arcade CRTs run at one of three resolutions, 320x200 15KHz, 512x384 24.5KHz, or 640x480 31KHz. Some modern arcade tubes also support 800x600 31 KHz. The light guns themselves have no concept of resolution, they are merely an optical sensor that picks up where the gun is located on the screen at the time the trigger is pulled.

As for the statement about retrofitting new technology into the old housings, that is correct. We are currently using the existing Happ plastics for the Sonic Gun System testing and have built our PCB's in the same footprint as the current optical PCB's so that the housings can be used with no tool changes to existing plastics. We built a small plastic barrel insert to allow for focusing of the beam inside the gun where the lens used to be placed.

davidrfoley · « **Reply #60 on:** December 31, 2008, 07:35:45 am »

Quote from: Siris on December 30, 2008, 10:16:16 pm

Quote from: davidrfoley on October 15, 2008, 02:52:00 pm
Happ had working boards, unfortunately they never tested them with Happ Guns, just with Area 51 guns. We are taking a look at adding Area 51 gun support to the firmware now.

Not sure I understand that, from what I can tell from the Happ site:

http://www.happcontrols.com/amusement/optical/96067000.htm

The guns interchange with a simple dongle to change connectors. So why would that need a firmware revision?

I haven't been around in years but just picked up an Area 51 Site 4 cab got it working beautiful with soft15khz, I was just getting my Act labs gun working on my VGA monitor to try on the 25".

So happened upon this thread, That adapter would be awesome for me, would love to see these Site 4 guns put to good use.

BTW: is the shoot off screen to reload in Area 51 working?

We have had problems with the Area 51 guns and our OptiGun Controller. We are looking into upgrading the firmware to support the gun. There is no documentation available from Happ, so we are reverse engineering the gun to see why it generates a different output signal than the standard light guns. When you compare the basic output of the Area 51 Gun to that of the standard guns, it's very different. We have both and will have an update for them soon.

peterpepper · « **Reply #61 on:** December 31, 2008, 10:40:05 am »

Hi Dave,

1. will the OptiGun work with the original Namco Time Crisis III Guns too?

2. on the OptiGun datasheet only 5 resolutions are listed to be working... does this mean that we'll have to force light gun games to work stretched at one of those resolutions? or will they work at their native resolutions? (i.e. operation wolf works @ 320x240, point blank is 288x224, jurassic park is 416x224, and so on...)

3. if we buy an OptiGun now, will we be able to upgrade its firmware in the future? ...and were will we find firmware upgrades?

4. HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Shoegazer · « **Reply #62 on:** January 01, 2009, 03:01:41 pm »

David, have you targeted a release date for the Sonic system?

Shoegazer

davidrfoley · « **Reply #63 on:** January 01, 2009, 09:26:10 pm »

Sorry, we don't set target release dates on engineering projects as it only makes for disappointments if something goes wrong. Since we are creating a bunch of hardware, software and DSP code from scratch we can't give a release date. I can tell you that we have a prototype board up and running with the sensor circuitry all powered. We are in the DSP portion of the project now.

Siris · « **Reply #64 on:** January 01, 2009, 10:14:33 pm »

Hey David,

You need someone "out of house" to help debug/beta test the Optigun board?
Like I said I have a working Area 51 Site 4 cab that I swap to a Mame cab just by swapping the monitor cable and unplugging the jamma board.
I sent you a PM.

Troy

davidrfoley · « **Reply #65 on:** January 01, 2009, 10:42:03 pm »

Thanks, we have Area 51 guns in house, and we are seeing that they generate a very different signal on the scope than a normal gun does. We will work on it soon and figure out how to support it.

Siris · « **Reply #66 on:** January 01, 2009, 10:58:37 pm »

Just thought I'd ask.
What better way to say the product will work in a dedicated cab then to do it and see.
Anyway hurry up then, I want one! heh

Troy

peterpepper · « **Reply #67 on:** January 16, 2009, 11:52:41 am »

any news?

CathalDublin · « **Reply #68 on:** January 16, 2009, 01:50:32 pm »

Quote from: sWampy on December 30, 2008, 09:49:22 am

Aren't wii-mote's put into a gun shell going to be the ultimate solution once better drivers are written. They work with any display technology, any display orientation, resolution, etc. By controlling the distance between the led's you can control how close or far back you stand. I played hod on the wii with 2 perfect shot holders on a 100"+ projector, and it was awesome, 2 players shots dead on.

whos writing the drivers, is there a website?

TeutonicDarkness · « **Reply #69 on:** February 25, 2009, 09:32:54 pm »

OK just thought of a question...
regarding the OptiGun adapter:

Does the gun(cursor) actually track when used in Mame?
or will it work like the Act Labs gun that only
moves where you shoot?

I didn't seem to see any mention of if gun/cursor would actually
track.

I plan on using an Arcade monitor.. so not worried to much about
the sonic gun.

I'm almost sold on this just need a few questions answered.

Thanks,

*** Teutonic Darkness ***

davidrfoley · « **Reply #70 on:** February 26, 2009, 11:07:31 am »

All light guns require a very bright image on screen (ie white screen) in order to pick up the raster gun to coordinate the x,y location that you are aiming at. This is why light gun games flash the screen white when you pull the trigger. You can attempt to constantly track the gun without flashing the screen, but black areas of the screen will become dead zones.

geocab · « **Reply #71 on:** February 26, 2009, 04:01:48 pm »

Is that why light guns don't typically work well with LCD screens? Because they can't do white as brightly as a CRT?

davidrfoley · « **Reply #72 on:** February 26, 2009, 04:09:50 pm »

No, light guns don't work with LCD's because there is no raster painting the screen. The way a raster display works is there is a gun at the back of the tube that moves across the tube. one line at a time painting the image against a phosphor coating on the back of the glass. When excited by the beam, the phosphor holds the charge momentarily, long enough that the gun can move from top to bottom without the imaging noticeably fading. This is tubes have a little glow to them after you shut them off. There is a sensor inside the gun that takes a snapshot of the screen and waits for the beam to cross past the sensor, and then it takes the refresh timing of the display and figures out where the where the gun is pointing.

geocab · « **Reply #73 on:** February 26, 2009, 10:58:06 pm »

Thanks for the explanation, David. I'm still researching cabinets and trying to decide what I want to include, etc. and I think I'm pretty much stuck with a CRT monitor since I want to use light guns.

TeutonicDarkness · « **Reply #74 on:** February 27, 2009, 01:31:36 am »

Quote from: davidrfoley on February 26, 2009, 11:07:31 am

All light guns require a very bright image on screen (ie white screen) in order to pick up the raster gun to coordinate the x,y location that you are aiming at. This is why light gun games flash the screen white when you pull the trigger. You can attempt to constantly track the gun without flashing the screen, but black areas of the screen will become dead zones.

OK that still doesn't answer my question?
So let me ask again in a very simple easy to understand way....

If I use this supposed device with a arcade lightgun playing Mame;
will The cursor move with where I point the gun?
Say for example I wanted to try this device with Terminator 2
would the Cursor track with the gun movement or only
( lock in when I fire)? The act Labs guns do not track but
the cursor only moves position on screen when you fire there.

Is that the case with this as well?

I hoped I explained myself a little better now..

smalltownguy · « **Reply #75 on:** February 27, 2009, 07:05:59 am »

The Act labs guns, like other CRT based guns, won't actively track the current pointing position. When you depress the trigger on one of those guns, the gun analyzes the current gun position 'while redrawing the screen' and locks in at that point. There are L.E.D. based systems (like the Top Gun) that get around this.

We all wait with baited breath for a Wii crack....

Luigi · « **Reply #76 on:** February 27, 2009, 07:07:35 am »

Hi.

As far as I know, T2 guns don't work optical but with pots for X- and Y-axis. If you move the gun the pots increase/decrease and so the position you're aiming at is given to the pcb (OMG, I hope that sentence makes sence...sorry for my english

) That is the reason why the guns are attached to the control panel.

I don't think that it is possible to emulate that with optical arcade guns.

If you use EMS Topguns with Gun2mouse....that might work because there are sensors left and right of the screen (LCD and plasma, too) that allow to get the position all the time without a white flash. I'm still waiting for some time to install the gun to my notebook so I can test it with my plasma

Maybe someone else here knows if it works that the crosshair moves with the Topgun.....

Todd H · « **Reply #77 on:** February 27, 2009, 09:46:52 am »

Quote from: smalltownguy on February 27, 2009, 07:05:59 am

We all wait with baited breath for a Wii crack....

Supposedly it's coming. The people behind the Pinnacle Game Profiler are promising full support for the Wii-mote in the future.

http://www.pinnaclegameprofiler.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=2269&start=105&postdays=0&postorder=asc&highlight=

davidrfoley · « **Reply #78 on:** February 27, 2009, 10:47:28 am »

No, it won't track like Terminator. Terminator didn't use a light gun. It used a joystick to play the game, it was just disguised as a light gun. The terminator gun was nothing more than a large joystick with a plastic housing.

As I stated before, Light Guns can only track like that if you have a very bright (ie white) screen. If you put up a white background, a light gun can track the movement of the gun, however, when you hit a black area on the screen, it will not be able to track.

TeutonicDarkness · « **Reply #79 on:** February 28, 2009, 12:31:42 am »

Quote from: davidrfoley on February 27, 2009, 10:47:28 am

No, it won't track like Terminator. Terminator didn't use a light gun. It used a joystick to play the game, it was just disguised as a light gun. The terminator gun was nothing more than a large joystick with a plastic housing.

I think most of use here are quite aware of how The original
Terminator gun worked...

I really wouldn't care if it was a joystick, keyboard, mouse,
whatever, as long as it looked like a gun acted liked a gun;
and worked with more than just 2 games.

I think what we would like to see however is a solution
that would work with all games regardless!

Quote

As I stated before, Light Guns can only track like that if you have a very bright (ie white) screen. If you put up a white background, a light gun can track the movement of the gun, however, when you hit a black area on the screen, it will not be able to track.

You know I heard a lot of people complain about the flashing
of the ACT Lab Guns.. I really don't mind it at all If I can find
a solution that will track and support more than 2 games..

A Well I had hoped...

guess I'll just hold off for something else


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